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The winner of the 2026 Tiny Desk Contest is revealed by NPR Music's Bobby Carter. It's the 12th time that an unsigned musical artist has won the nationwide challenge.

A commentary by Elissa Ely about a patient in a psychiatric hospital who is devoted to her collection of newspaper.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy may not like some of his wife's lyrics. In one cut, Carla Bruni compares her lover to high-grade heroin. We hear what Parisians think of the new album.

Stranded in Southern California without a return ticket back to England, DJ Mary Anne Hobbs cooked up an impromptu tour and broadcast her BBC1 show, temporarily renamed the "Volcano Refugee Party," from Los Angeles. Here, Hobbs highlights five songs from L.A.'s "beat music" scene: It's a diverse smattering of music, unified only by computers, samplers and pulsing rhythms.

Before there was The Full Monty, there were the Ladies of Rylstone. A few years ago, a group of middle-aged women in the tiny town of Rylstone, England, decided to try a new twist on an old fundraising opportunity. They were part of a charity organization called the Women's Institute, and one day they joked that it would be fun to do a calendar -- a girlie, pin-up calendar. In the nude. The result was $750,000 raised for leukemia research. Lisa talks with Tricia Stewart, Miss October, and Angela Baker, Miss February. In the new Ladies of Rylstone calendar, they're dressed in little more than a string of pearls.

A cooking magazine's family-recipe contest brought in 3,000 entries. Public television cooking host Chris Kimball says many had catchy names like "Naked Ladies with Their Legs Crossed," along with equally memorable back-stories.

Noah talks to fiddler Jay Ungar and guitarist/pianist Molly Mason about their new recording "The Lovers' Waltz," a collection of music they've played at weddings. Molly says sometimes a tune writes itself -- as if it's always existed and the role of the composer is to uncover what's always been there. Jay Ungar is best known for his composition "Ashokan Farewell" -- the sad fiddle tune used throughout Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War."

American citizens have written to the first ladies of the nation since the days of Martha Washington. The letters make requests, ask for favors, criticize and praise. A number of letters to presidents' wives have been collected in the new book Dear First Lady.

NPR's Neal Conan tells the story of Alison Bly, the so-called Dynamite Lady of minor league baseball. As part of his twice-monthly series Play-by-Play Conan watches Bly shoot across the sky as part of the ball park entertainment.

The popular No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels by Alexander McCall Smith have been made into a series for HBO. Jill Scott plays heroine Precious Ramotswe. In an article for The Daily Beast, Stanley Crouch hails her nuanced performance, and the show's depiction of Africa.

The diminuitive British rapper Louise Harman, known as Lady Sovereign, is the first foreign female artist signed by Jay Z's Island Def Jam label. Despite her regal title, Lady Sovereign grew up in a public housing project in London, and her rhymes are anything but highbrow.

U.S. school districts worry it could get even more expensive to prepare a meal under new federal dietary guidelines, as they also contend with cuts to programs that helped them buy local food.